


the chaotic dumbasses finally go on a date

by greyhavensking



Series: the misadventures of blackout and her found family trope [3]
Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Angst, Asexual Character, Established Relationship, F/M, First Dates, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gray-Asexuality, Light Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-15
Updated: 2020-03-18
Packaged: 2021-02-27 03:48:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22270552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greyhavensking/pseuds/greyhavensking
Summary: More or less what it says on the tin. Matt and Michaela have their long-awaited first date (at Foggy's insistence).
Relationships: Matt Murdock/Original Female Character(s)
Series: the misadventures of blackout and her found family trope [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1602505
Comments: 3
Kudos: 22





	1. Chapter 1

**michaela**

_Foggy, to what do I owe the pleasure?_

**you two need to go out**

_???_

_Explain please?_

**you and matt otherwise known as the biggest pain in my ass since we hit that godawful seafood cart on 15 th **

_Wait what? The fuck have we done to you?_

**Less you, more MATT**

**Okay so I’ve seen him in relationships before and he’s usually all calm and suave and disgustingly handsome**

_…are you saying he’s not those things right now? Because uhhh I object wholeheartedly_

**No god he’s still handsome let’s not get into that**

**A man has his insecurities Michaela**

_Aw Foggy… you’re adorable!_

**That is not the same thing and you know it**

_Well if it makes you feel better I don’t wanna have sex with either of you_

**…**

**I’m sure Matt will be thrilled to hear that**

**We are off-track do not derail this any further**

_You started it!_

**Debatable**

**Anyway you and Matt need to go OUT out bc otherwise his sappy bullshit is going to drive me to commit murder 1 and then I’ll have to represent myself**

_Karen could probably do it_

_But wait, what the HELL are you talking about? Matt’s not sappy_

**Au contraire**

**He smiles. A LOT. He’s GIDDY michaela**

**I’m getting sick of it**

_Matt told me you were just as bad when you started dating Marci_

… **he’s not with you rn is he?**

_No, but that doesn’t make my point any less valid_

**Goddamn you’re stubborn**

**Listen to me ok?**

_I’m listening. Metaphorically speaking_

**You two deserve each other**

**Whatever. Just go out with him. On a date. He needs to get the inner hopeless romantic out of his system**

_Is there a reason you’re bringing this to me and not Matt…?_

**Because Matt’s a martyr and he won’t actually ask you out if he thinks it’s something you don’t want**

_…why would he think I don’t want_

_Ah shit_

**You give off the BIGGEST anti-social vibes michaela**

**And also you have recounted some truly terrible past dates to all of us while drunk**

**I think you verbatim once said you never wanted to go on another date again**

_I meant that about Diana! She pickpocketed me and tried to steal my identity!_

_Why she wanted it I have no idea but she still did it_

**I know that but matt was wary about admitting he liked you in the first place**

**He’s not gonna push you on anything**

_Fuck okay_

_Yeah I’ll do something about it_

**Praise Jesus**

_______________

Michaela’s no stranger to planning romantic outings. She’s been the asker-outer in most of her quote-unquote relationships over the years, all starting with Naomi Collins in eighth grade, when they went to the dinner-dance together. Which they also skipped out on after Naomi kicked Finn Harper in the balls for saying something not-so-vaguely homophobic about the two of them.

Some days Michaela wonders what became of Finn. Best guess is he’s probably working for the government in some capacity. Mayor of some backwater town, maybe. Frontrunner for the senate. Something appropriately high-brow and authoritarian.

_God_ , Finn was a dick. No wonder she’s blocked him out of most of her memories of high school.

Anyway.

Experience doesn’t necessarily equal competence, evidenced by the fact that Michaela is going out of her damn mind in search of a first date idea for her and Matt. Dinner seems so… mundane, and Michaela isn’t actually a huge fan of visiting establishments that are out of her price range, which is, as of right now, approximately fifteen dollars. They also eat together all the time; she’s over Matt’s apartment every other day of the week and the rest of the time (when they both aren’t too injured or too busy) he’s at hers. Then again, Matt might get a kick out of playing civilian for a few hours, who knows. She’s never asked him how his dates with Karen went.

Mostly because she doesn’t know how to do it without coming off as needy and jealous and she’s not interested in ticking off those boxes so early in their relationship.

Problem is, dinner is more or less the quintessential date for newly minted couples, that get-to-know-you game over breadsticks or. Other foods. Whatever. Her brain’s a fucking sieve right now, she can barely remember the _names_ of the other people she’s dated, let alone what they ate when they went out together.

Her other go-to would be a movie, and, uh. Matt would laugh if she offered, probably, not offended in the least; he might even humor her and say _yes_ , just to wait until she cracked and admitted she maybe-sorta planned to narrate the action sequences to him. No, no, Michaela can run through that conversation in her head and she wants no part of making it a reality, even if she is a little addicted to the sound of Matt’s laughter when he’s genuinely happy and-or amused.

Good thing Google exists.

Michaela plops down onto her ratty armchair, laptop settled on her crossed legs. She debates exactly what she wants to put into the search bar, then shrugs and just goes with _date ideas_. Not very original, but she’s never claimed to be all that creative.

Oh, that turns up about _1, 150, 000, 000_ results. Guess she knows how she’s spending the rest of her night.

The top result reads _200 fun date ideas_. Overwhelming still, but more doable.

  1. _Take a class for something new_



A class, huh. On what, exactly? Cooking, maybe? Michaela’s not the worst cook in the world, though admittedly she did almost burn down her apartment once. A news segment on an in-progress robbery interrupted her Spotify playlist and she dropped what she was doing and suited up to go lend a hand. Unfortunately, _what she was doing_ at the time was boiling water to make herself sad fettucine, which is like normal fettucine except she eats way too much of it and then lies face-down on the couch for the next three hours after she’s finished.

Incidentally, Matt doesn’t really like it when he calls in the middle of her making sad fettucine. Which he does with a sort of startling frequency. Like, if she didn’t know any better, she’d think his hearing is _actually_ good enough to listen in on her thoughts, even all the way over in his own apartment.

So she could stand to brush up on her culinary skills. Matt’s great at cooking, and even though she’s eighty-percent sure it’s witchcraft, she’s not complaining; she gets to reap the benefits of his dark pact with Satan on a regular basis. They could still reasonably have fun at a cooking class despite only one of them _needing_ it, but. She’ll table that one for now.

  1. _Do some geocaching_



…there’s a brief blurb describing what that is beneath the suggestion, but Michaela scrolls right past it, making an executive decision that she wouldn’t enjoy geocaching in the slightest.

  1. _Do yoga together with a twist_



Yoga and booze, hot yoga, yoga outside, naked yoga… No, nope, not happening. First off, Michaela’s not bendy, never has been, and while objectively she knows she could change that with practice, she doesn’t really want to contort herself into a pretzel, clothes or no clothes. Also, she’s pretty sure naked yoga is just a euphemism for sex, and if it isn’t the person who wrote this article has some very weird ideas about intimacy.

  1. _Rent a skateboard or longboard and give it a go_



Ha. Fat chance. Michaela broke her wrist in her junior year of high school from stepping onto (and subsequently flying off) some douche’s longboard that he’d parked in the middle of the hallway. Now she’s traumatized for life.

  1. _Rent a convertible sports car or luxury car and cruise around all day_



In New York. Right, sure, that’s brilliant. Plus, she’s pretty sure Matt can’t legally drive a car even if he’d probably be better at it than half the people she encounters in the city every day, and she still has yet to get her license. And that’s not even factoring in the money neither of them really has.

  1. _Go donate blood together_



Uh-huh.

  1. _Go foraging for edible plants and berries and make a meal out of them_



She’s not trying to _kill him_ , Christ. With Michaela’s luck she’d ID some rare, poisonous plant as basil or some shit and off them both.

The ideas get more ridiculous from there, and a lot of them rely on both partners being, well. Able to see, you know, with their _eyes_ , not whatever echolocation thing Matt has going on. Not that he’s not impressive with it, Michaela still gets a little awestruck just watching him navigate around her apartment even when she’s had to move her scant collection of furniture around. Just. She knows blind painters are a thing, but she’s pretty sure asking Matt to paint a portrait of her would result in either some lovingly rendered stick art, or something so abstract even Picasso would question its relevance. And that’s only if Matt doesn’t decide to fuck with her, which he’s wont to do because apparently her reactions are even better than Foggy’s.

He’s such a dick. A real asshole when he gets going.

She still doesn’t know how she lucked into him loving her back.

There’s a section specifically dedicated to first date ideas. Michaela bites her lip, glances away from the laptop, like she’ll get inspiration from the dishes she’s left in the sink or the might-be-mold-might-be-a-questionable-stain spot on the ceiling above her kitchen setup. She squints – her landlord was _supposed_ to take care of the maybe-mold months ago, ha, but it’s clearly only gotten worse. Maybe the mold will kill her before she has to come to decision about this date. A girl can dream, at least.

A low, embarrassing groan of frustration leaves her as she slumps forward, bracing her laptop screen with her hands and letting the edge dig into her forehead, squeezing her eyes shut against the glaring brightness. Death is not an option here – she made some grandiose promise to Matt that if he got himself killed, she’d drag him back to the world of the living no matter what the hell it cost her, so. Be a bit hypocritical of her to go dying on him now. And it’s just a _date_ , just a reason for them to go out and have fun together without the weight of the world (or New York, anyway) on their shoulders. They don’t have to through the song and dance of getting to know each other, they are way, _way_ past that part. This shouldn’t be feeding her anxiety as much as it is.

Asking Matt wouldn’t ruin anything, not really. It’s not a surprise, or anything, she’s not keeping this from him. It’s just. It’s a little bit of a surprise, maybe. Fuck, she’s making this so much more complicated than it needs to be. Why did she listen to Foggy, anyway? Oh, right, because he’s Matt’s bestest friend in the whole wide world and knows him better than anyone, and he’s probably the authority on whether or not Matt needs to get out of his apartment for something other than ass-kicking, both of the vigilante and lawyer variety. She wants this to go _well_ , alright, she’s setting the bar so goddamn low and she’s still terrified of missing the mark.

Michaela leans back in her chair, knocking her head back against the headrest repeatedly, vaguely wishing for a harder surface so she can knock herself the fuck out and be done with this day. Except she doesn’t want that _at all_ because she really wants to come up with a fantastic first date idea and call Matt and set things up and feel accomplished about _something_.

Sliding her hands back to the keyboard, Michaela taps agitatedly with her pointer and middle fingers of her right hand, careful not to press down on any of the keys. Okay, recap: most of this list is shit and not worth her time, but that first one she looked at, the class on something new… that has potential. Cooking might be out but there are a ton of classes at the community center. Probably. She’s only been down there once before, as herself strangely enough, when she’d been looking for a way to occupy her time that wasn’t drug-related since. You know. That’s what a lot of people her age with no reasonable prospects turn to, and the last thing she wanted to add to her flimsy resume was _local addict_. She remembers seeing a sign listing all the available classes, sectioned off into _free_ and then by how much they were, like amounts grouped together and all.

They’ve actually got a website, now that she thinks about it. Closing out of the mostly unhelpful dating site, she types in the name of the community center and clicks on the top hit, following the tabs until she lands on the classes they’ve got going on right now.

She scans the list, mentally weighing the pros and cons of each class. Painting, no; she’s already decided against cooking; a ballroom dance class… interesting, but no, Michaela has stepped on too many toes in her life. And—

 _Oh. That could be fun_.

She worries her lower lip between her teeth, taps incessantly against the keyboard some more. Then, dredging up whatever confidence she’s got in storage, she snags her phone from the pocket of her hoodie and calls Matt.

“Hey, Matty. Any chance you’re free this Thursday, around six?”


	2. Chapter 2

Matt comes to pick her up.

That’s not unusual, really; when he has the time, he stops by her apartment on his way back from the office, and then they head over to his place together. It’s cute and gentlemanly, and she knows he’s not doing it because he doesn’t trust her to keep herself safe (despite the boat-load of evidence to the contrary); he’s told her, up front, that he just likes spending the extra time with her, and god, she nearly melted on the spot hearing that. Matt is naturally charming and it’s a legitimate hazard to her health, made all the worse when he puts actual _effort_ into making her blush and stammer and all that gooey stuff she hasn’t experienced much since high school.

“Do I get to know where we’re going yet?” Matt asks, his tone light and teasing, waiting patiently just outside her apartment as Michaela throws on the faux-leather jacket she specifically hung up by the door so she wouldn’t forget it tonight. It’s her favorite, and she only wears it on “special occasions,” because. Well, mostly because she doesn’t see a point to dressing up most days. Work and school don’t really require anything _nice_ , the apron at _Cody’s_ hides most of whatever she’s wearing that day anyway.

Tonight, though. Tonight counts as special, even if the jacket is more for her benefit than Matt’s. Matt, as always, looks effortlessly amazing, decked out in a black peacoat, a nice white shirt, and dark jeans, tucked into a pair of boots she’s never seen him wear before. Interesting.

“Where’s your sense of adventure, Matty?” Michaela replies, grinning.

She hooks their arms together, leans into his side as she plays his guide on their way down the stairs and out of the building. Matt’s brought his cane, which he sometimes forgoes when they’re together, so that means she has the excuse to practically hang off him all night under the guise of her helping him around. She’d bet on that being at least half of why he bothered with the cane, the other half being that there’s a chance someone could recognize him on the streets. Nelson & Murdock have a lot of happy clients in the neighborhood, after all.

“Adventure for me typically means someone’s trying to stab me,” he says wryly, and she… she has to give him that one. They lead pretty exciting lives, she has to admit. As if reading her mind, he adds, “And for you, it’s—”

“Shhhhh,” Michaela hisses, clapping a hand lightly over Matt’s mouth. She feels his mouth curve into a smile against her palm, and she reflexively grins, happy he’s happy. “He Who Shall Not Be Named has nothing to with tonight, okay? In fact, forget about our alter egos altogether – right now it’s just you and me, Matty. Michaela and Matt, not Blackout and Daredevil. Sound good to you?”

“So you’ve upgraded him to Voldemort status?”

“ _Matt_.”

“Alright, alright,” he laughs, pressing a kiss to her temple that nets him all the brownie points. All of them. Shit, she’s _blushing_ , and Matt knows it, the asshole. “No more work talk. I’ve been successfully persuaded.”

“Damn right you have,” Michaela grins, nudging his shoulder with her own. “It’s the feminine wiles, right?”

He raises both brows, tilting his face just enough to give the impression he would be looking at her if he could. “ _Feminine wiles_?” The smile that’s been building abruptly vanishes, his face going innocently blank, tinged with that Catholic guilt he’s always got on the backburner. “Miss King, have I been objectifying you? Oh, dear, how _awful_ of me, I can’t believe—”

“Shut _up_ , Murdock, Christ,” but Michaela’s giggling, _giggling_ , dammit, fuck he’s reduced her to school-girl levels of idiocy, this absolute smug bastard. “We both know I don’t have any moves, anyway. I can’t like, seductively sway you to my side. I’d probably break something.”

“Something of yours, or mine?”

“More like the furniture.”

“I can’t even imagine how you’d go about doing that.”

“Shoulda seen me in high school, Matty, back before I figured out that sex isn’t really _my thing_. I was a nerd, but goddamn if I wasn’t still, uh. What’s a word that isn’t going to make me sound like a whore? Not that there’s anything wrong with that, _per se_ , I just don’t like it as a label.”

“Promiscuous?”

“Eh, good enough.”

They’re a few blocks away from the community center still when Matt stops them suddenly, urging Michaela to step out of the way of foot traffic, leading the two of them into a small nook between two shop fronts. Michaela lets him turn her around, bemused as his hands grip lightly at her upper arms. His face has gone a little tight, the grooves around his mouth deepening with his frown.

She opens her mouth to ask him what’s wrong, but he beats her to it.

“This isn’t really the time or place to bring this up, but… you know I’m not expecting anything, right?”

“Expecting—” Michaela blinks, taken aback. That’s…not completely out of left field, given that she brought it up herself, it’s just. She sort of thought they’d have this conversation later, and yeah, not out in the middle of the street at 5:45 at night. Matt’s a good guy, though, she never thought he’d— “Matt, I… ah, shit. Yeah, of course I know that. It’s—are you sure you wanna do this here?”

“We don’t have to,” he says, his smile sheepish, his hands rubbing gently at her arms. “I picked possibly the worst moment to ask you about it, but I caught—your heart sped up while you were talking, and your speech pattern changed, like how it does when you’re nervous but trying to power through it. I didn’t want this hanging over us for the rest of the night, but if you’d rather we talk later…”

Shit. _Shit_. She never forgets he can read her so easily, not really, but she’s not even sure _she_ clocked that she was getting upset talking about her past. It’s not that unusual that she doesn’t notice the edge of panic right away, she lives half her days on a knife’s edge of anxiety anyway… it’s just annoying that she didn’t stop herself from talking about this in the first place. She was joking, yeah, and deep down she didn’t even really think that Matt would judge her for it, but. Self-sabotage isn’t exactly a foreign concept to her.

That’s actually why she and Naomi didn’t work out, come to think of it.

Michaela takes a deep breath, unconsciously curling her fingers into the bottom of Matt’s jacket.

“Okay, yeah, let’s do this here,” she says, more a whisper than anything else, knowing Matt’ll hear her just fine. “I’m, uh. God, this is weird, putting it into words, but. I’m asexual…ish.”

Matt quirks a brow, curious rather than annoyed. “What’s the _ish_ mean in this case?”

Ain’t that the million-dollar question. Michaela’s been asking herself that for most of her adult life. “Okay, so. Obviously, I’ve had sex. I even enjoyed it, mostly. But I, uh. I don’t _want_ it all that often, ya know? The desire sorta… comes and goes, and most of the time I barely register it when it’s there. An ex…something, not a boyfriend, we weren’t that close, but anyway, he said I probably fall more into the category of gray-asexual, but damn, Matty, people don’t even accept asexuality, let alone a subcategory.”

It’s only after she’s gotten it all out that she realizes how rushed that was, how messy. Her eyes are trained on one of the buttons on Matt’s coat, and she swallows hard, flexing her fingers in the soft fabric she’s wrapped them up in. She’s not afraid to look at him, or, well, not because of anything Matt’s said or done. This is all on her and the bullshit she’s gone through before with partners. Very few sexually active guys are willing to be in a mostly sexless relationship, and the women she’s dated, they weren’t as bad, but they still _wanted it_ , some more than others. Michaela hasn’t always been _enough_ for the people she’s been with, and it’s left its mark on her, as much as she hates it.

One of Matt’s hands slides away from her arm, tucks under her chin and nudges her head up a bit. She flicks her eyes away, then guiltily brings them back to Matt, watching her panicked expression in the reflection of his glasses.

“Hey,” he says, soft and warm, smiling. “I can say, with absolute certainty, that I’ve never been after you just for your looks.”

Michaela snorts an unexpected burst of laughter, fighting the urge to twist her face away from Matt. Such a bastard, making her laugh in such a tense moment. The sheer _gall_.

“Michaela, if I were in this for the sex, we would never have had a problem. Matt Murdock would have asked Michaela King from the convenience store out a year ago and gotten it out of his system, and that would have been that. I’m not actually all that shy with attractive women.”

“I’m not even gonna ask how you’d know,” Michaela mutters, biting her lip to keep from breaking out into a semi-hysterical smile.

“Foggy’s usually my confirmation,” Matt admits, shrugging. “Or so he thinks, at least.” He pauses, pulling her a little closer, both arms sliding around her waist. His heart’s steady and sure against hers, and it’s frankly miraculous how soothing she finds it. “And, without oversharing—”

“Because that’d be downright uncalled for right now, huh?”

Matt shakes his head, fond, but keeps going. “I usually know when someone’s interested. There are biological tells, my hearing’s supernatural, you get the picture. And while I knew for a while that you _liked_ me—”

“God, Matt, you’re trying to kill me, aren’t you?”

“That’s my master plan,” he says, earning another huff of laughter from her. “I knew you liked me, but I also knew it wasn’t sexual, most of the time. And it doesn’t bother me, Michaela. It never has. That night I crashed your apartment, half-dead, and you kissed me? I wasn’t expecting anything more then, and I’m not now. I won’t in the future, either, unless it’s something you want. You trust me?”

“’Course I do,” she says, automatic, doesn’t even have to give it a second thought. She’s trusted Matt with her everything for months now, even back when she had no idea he felt the same way. She trusts Matt with her life and she’s trusted him with her heart for as long as he’s had it, though it might’ve been ill-advised for a while there.

“Then trust me when I tell you that I want _you_ , whatever parts of yourself you’re willing to give me.”

“You, too,” she blurts out, wincing at how very _uncool_ she’s being right now, when Matt is, as always, the epitome of charm and perfection. Or, fuck, he’s not perfect, she knows that, but in this moment? He’s perfect to her. “I mean. I want you, however that works.” Not the most eloquent of responses, but it’s words, and honestly that’s more than she was expecting at the moment. 

“Glad we agree,” Matt murmurs, pressing another fleeting kiss to her forehead. Then he steps back, moving to grab her hand as he weaves his way back into the crowded sidewalks. “C’mon, let’s get to the community center before we’re late for whatever you have planned.”

“Wait,” she says, baffled, and Matt cants his head back towards her, “wait, _what_ , you know where we’re going?”

“Most logical choice based on the direction we’ve been heading,” he explains, grinning only a _little_ smugly.

“Sometimes I forget you basically have Hell’s Kitchen memorized. Are you constantly following like a mental map of the city?”

“Not the whole city. I’m just familiar with Hell’s Kitchen. When I was away for college, I had to rely a lot more on my hearing and Foggy’s directions to make sure I didn’t get lost.”

“So, like. What you’re saying is you wouldn’t be as good of a hero if you were based out of Manhattan or something.”

Matt laughs, squeezing her hand. “Sure, that’s what I’m saying. Is this your subtle way of asking if you’re, objectively, the superior hero?”

Michaela’s nose wrinkles just at the thought. “God, no, that’s you no matter what borough we’re in. I’m better than I was because of Lincoln’s training, but… uh. Just no. I’m not _superior_ by any means.”

They’re coming up on the community center, and Michaela’s more than prepared to drop this conversation, partly because it’s not something they can really discuss in a crowded room of wannabe artists, partly because _she’s_ the one who instigated the rule about steering clear of their alter egos for the evening.

But Matt likes to get the last word in, which doesn’t come as a surprise but is still mildly annoying.

“You don’t give yourself enough credit, Michaela. You’ve come a long way since you tried to take on those gang members by yourself and nearly got shot for your trouble. You’re a hero to a lot of people in our home, you should take pride in that.”

Goddammit, Matt, how does he just _say things like that_?

She can’t even think of a retort, and the heat in her cheeks is an embarrassing reminder that she’s not sure she even wants to try. Matt, clearly pleased with himself, drops back a few steps so that they’re walking side-by-side as they approach the community center. He casually hooks their arms again, says _thank you_ like a good Catholic boy when she opens the door for the both of them, his cane rapping faintly against the ground and his eyes on nothing in particular. She knows he’s blind, that he genuinely can’t see a thing, but he’s so agile and confident most of the time that she… she doesn’t forget, exactly, just notices it less, she supposes. It’s always strange seeing him play the part so convincingly, like he’s actually reliant upon her getting him places and making sure he doesn’t like, trip over a crack in the sidewalk. What’s even stranger is that Matt plays the part without a hint of resentment. She can’t say she’d be so good-humored about the whole thing if she were in his shoes.

The class they’re taking is easy to find once Michaela’s deciphered the notice board in the front lobby. A few people are already waiting inside the room, seated behind potter’s wheels, some of them chatting with one another, others tapping monotonously at their cellphones. No one really picks up on their arrival and Michaela’s grateful for it; she doesn’t think they’d make a scene or anything, but she’s all for slipping under the radar when she can manage it. She keeps up with the theme by parking them in the back of the class, at least two seats away from everyone else.

Once he’s sitting down, Matt leans his cane against the closet wall and brings his hands up to the potter’s wheel, brows quirking as his fingers map out the edges of the wheel, catching on bits of dried clay. Michaela’s grin is probably over the top but she can’t bring herself to tamp it down, and she’s practically bouncing in her own seat, watching for Matt’s reaction.

“So, I have a guess about what we’re here for,” he says, sounding faintly amused.

“And that would be…?”

“You signed us up for a pottery class?”

“Just be happy it wasn’t the watercolor class next door.”

Matt’s mouth pulls at the corners, not quite a smile, though she catches a flash of his teeth like he’s fighting one back.

“Interesting choice,” he says. “Not something I would have thought of.” Before she can start to panic (because she’s constantly on a slippery slope and it takes very little effort to shove her down the hill), he places his hand over hers where it’s clenched around the fabric of her jeans. “It sounds fun,” he says, his voice ringing with sincerity, and she breathes a little easier on the next exhale. “I wouldn’t have thought of it because I’m not very artsy. I didn’t go to law school just because I’m a little too righteous, you know.”

Michaela shakes her head, biting back a laugh; she should know by now that Matt almost always has the right thing to say sitting on the tip of his tongue. At least when it comes to her and her insecurities. If nothing else, their talk on the street should have proven that to her once and for all.

“Just so you know,” she says, just as she registers the apron-wearing woman in her mid-fifties coming through the door. Their instructor, probably. Michaela’s grin sharpens – just a little, just a bit. “I’m gonna judge the shit outta your pottery skills.”

The patented Daredevil Smirk appears right on cue. “Then I guess I better get to work on my masterpiece.”

_______________________

It should surprise absolutely no one that Matt’s vase is exponentially more impressive than the lumpy mug-slash-planter-pencil cup Michaela walks away with at the end of the night. She can’t even say she minds – _Matt’s_ impressive, always has been, and hey, she gets to go home with the hottest lawyer in New York, even though. Well. She finds him more aesthetically pleasing than anything else. But that’s just fine for both of them.

Plus, Michaela gets a nice vase out of it. It’s a win-win as far as she’s concerned.


End file.
